Great news! We’ve launched the second video in our series designed to jump-start your understanding of the core practices and principles of Agile software engineering (ASE). Lean-Agile thought leader Ken Pugh discusses why and how to build in quality from the start. Namely, how to build the right thing and build the thing right using a test-first approach.

Ken describes the two important concepts behind building the right thing. The first is the minimum marketable feature—the smallest piece of functionality we can deliver to a customer to provide business value. The second is the benefit hypothesis, which tests that the functionality is actually delivering that business value.

Next, Ken lays out three kinds of tests that guide teams in building the thing right.

Story tests – These tests are part of Behavior-Driven Development and are created by the triad of customer, developer, and tester prior to implementation.

Quality attribute tests – Quality attributes (also known as non-functional requirements) include availability, performance, security, and usability. In the video, Ken gives an example of a quality attribute test for usability.

Code tests – These are internal to the application and are typically created through Test-Driven Development. These tests are key to maintainability; Ken will spend more time discussing these in a future video.

Check back next week for the third video in the series about accelerating flow. Ken will share the flow phases in delivering a feature, process issues that can slow delivery, and sources of waste to minimize to ensure continuous flow of value to the customer.

If you missed the introductory video for the series, you can watch it here.